Bath
On the second day of our road trip we drove to Bath in southwest England. Bath is known for their natural hot springs and the honey-colored Bath stone used in the 18th-century architecture.
We started our morning at the Roman Baths where the Romans constructed a complex of bathhouses above the natural hot springs. Although you could not get into the water here (there are other spas in Bath to do this), the museum provided a detailed history of the complex. It was pretty interesting to learn about the construction and architecture of a building which was originally built in 75AD!! The current building was excavated and rebuilt in the 18th century to fit the Georgian architecture of the time.
We then walked next door to the Bath Abbey, a church built between 1499 and 1616. While exploring the inside, we learned of a guided tour to the top of the bell tower would be taking place in a few minutes and luckily they still had space available for us to join the tour. We climbed the 212 steps to the top of tower and were rewarded with beautiful views of the city and countryside.
We then walked over to Royal Crescent, a semicircular terrace of town houses overlooking Royal Victoria Park. We also wandered around Royal Victoria Park and explored the gardens.
We ended our time in Bath by grabbing a late lunch at the Hare & Hounds. The pub sits on a hill and overlooks the city and countryside. It was the perfect way to end our time in Bath!
Before heading back to London, we drove about an hour from Bath to Ludgershall Castle. The castle was built in the late 11th-century and later served as a hunting lodge favored by King John and Henry III. The castle itself is in the small town of Ludgershall and there are no admission fees or staff guarding the ruins. You can walk all over and unfortunately we did see some graffiti on the castle which made me sad.
You can see some of the graffiti on the inside of the tower
It was another two hours back to London as we hit some evening rush hour traffic. Overall it was a great little side trip and I'm glad we had the opportunity to visit. I'm going to end with this adorable picture of Alex driving our tiny Fiat 500!! So cute (both the car and the guy driving!!).
